Second, the Malvern street where Mary Shadd is located, Hupfield Trail, was the location of Toronto’s first homicide of 2012.

And so, on Saturday afternoon, about two dozen community members — youth workers, parents, children, a city councillor — found themselves shivering in the school’s parking lot, heads bowed, as the names of the 26 children and educators killed in Newtown, Conn., were read aloud. The group then quietly released 26 multi-coloured balloons skyward.

That tribute was followed by 54 seconds of silence, one for every person murdered in Toronto in 2012. The city saw an uptick in shooting deaths, with 33 people killed by gunfire, five more than 2011.

“One homicide at the end of the gun is one too many,” said Stephen Linton, whose City of Toronto crisis response team attends violent instances, offering support to the community. Linton noted that victims of gun violence here are getting younger, and his team has responded to cases where kids just barely teenagers have been in possession of guns.

“All of us working together can create a solution to make our city safe,” he added.

Linton helped Jermaine Christie and Deshon Downer, both 27, organize Saturday’s memorial. The pair, who started a program that helps youth on the basketball court and in the classroom, said the news of the massacre at Sandy Hook in Newtown, Conn. hit them hard.

“I really felt like it happened down here,” said Christie, who has lost friends and family to firearms.

“Gun violence knows no boundaries,” remarked youth outreach worker Kwesi Johnson, 27, who grew up in Malvern, an area of Scarborough nearby to Kingston-Galloway, home of this summer’s Danzig St. shooting. Police allege the shootout, which killed two innocent bystanders and wounded 23, was caused by rival gangs the Malvern Crew and Galloway Boys.

“I think the most important message is it’s not just a Malvern or a Kingston-Galloway problem. We need to recognize it’s a city issue,” said Johnson, adding more needs to be done so that Toronto doesn’t go the way of some American cities, like Chicago, which saw 438 killed by bullets in 2012.

Echoing that sentiment, city councillor Raymond Cho (Ward 42, Scarborough Rouge-River) said he hopes provincial and federal governments will learn from “big mistakes” of gun violence in the U.S. and ensure tight gun control laws.

Of course, the solutions to gun violence also come from individuals, something not lost on 12-year-old Marcus Arauz and his brother Nicolas, 10.

“You don’t have to kill people to make a point,” said Marcus after the memorial. “You can resolve your problems with words.”

Added Nicolas: “We are here to say there are better things than being around guns and violence. And you can have a better life.”

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